Massacre of Lviv professors

Unveiling of a new monument at the place of execution at Wuleckie Hills on 3 July 2011

Plaque in IBB PAN in Warsaw

In July 1941, 25 Polish academics from the city of Lwów (since 1945 Lviv, Ukraine) were killed by Nazi German occupation forces along with their families.[1] By targeting prominent citizens and intellectuals for elimination, the Nazis hoped to prevent anti-Nazi activity and to weaken the resolve of the Polish resistance movement. According to an eyewitness the executions were made by an Einsatzgruppen unit (Einsatzkommando zur besonderen Verwendung) under the command of SS-BrigadeführerKarl Eberhard Schöngarth with the participation of Ukrainian translators, who were dressed in German uniforms.[2]

To control the population, prominent citizens and intellectuals, particularly Jews and Poles, were either confined in ghettos or transported to execution sites such as the Gestapo prison on Pełczyńska Street, the Brygidki Prison, the former military prison at Zamarstynów and to the fields surrounding the city — in the suburb of Winniki, the Kortumówka hills and the Jewish Cemetery. Many of those killed were prominent leaders of Polish society: politicians, artists, aristocrats, sportsmen, scientists, priests, rabbis and other members of the intelligentsia. This mass murder is regarded as a pre-emptive measure to keep the Polish resistance scattered and to prevent Poles from revolting against Nazi rule. It was a direct continuation of the infamous Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion, one of the early stages of Generalplan Ost, after the German campaign against the USSR started and the eastern half of prewar Poland fell under German occupation in place of that of the Soviet Union. One of the earliest Nazi crimes in Lviv was the mass murder of Polish professors together with some of their relatives and guests, carried out at the beginning of July 1941.[1]

By 2 July 1941, the individual, planned executions continued. At approximately 3 o'clock in the evening Prof. Kazimierz Bartel was arrested by one of the Einsatzgruppen operating in the area. During the night of 3/4 July, several dozen professors and their families were arrested by German detachments - each one consisting of an officer, several soldiers, Ukrainian guides and interpreters.[5] The lists were prepared by their Ukrainian students associated with OUN.[6][7] Some of the professors mentioned on the lists were already dead, specifically Adam Bednarski and Roman Leszczyński.[5] Among those arrested was Prof Roman Rencki, a director of the Clinic for Internal Diseases at Lwów University, who was kept in NKVD prison and whose name was also on the list of Soviet prisoners sentenced to death.[8][9] The detained were transported to the Abrahamowicz's dormitory, where despite the preconceived intention to kill them, they were tortured and interrogated. The head of the department in the Jewish hospital, Prof Adam Ruff, was shot during an epileptic attack.[5]

In the early morning of July 4 one of the professors and most of his servants were set free while the rest were either brought to the Wulka hills or shot to death in the courtyard of the Bursa Abrahamowiczów building. The victims were buried on the spot, but several days after the massacre their bodies were exhumed and transported by the Wehrmacht to an unknown place.[1] According to Polish historians the victims were not involved in politics in any way.[1][10] According to a Ukrainian historian, out of approximately 160 Polish professors living in Lviv in June 1941, the professors chosen for execution were specifically those who actively cooperated with the Soviet regime in some way between 1940-1941.[11]

There are accounts of four different methods used by the German troops. The victims were either beaten to death, killed with a bayonet, killed with a hammer, or shot to death. The professors themselves were shot to death.[12]

Memorial has published documents which claim to document the Nachtigall participation in those events as a KGB disinformation.[19] Stanisław Bogaczewicz, of the Institute of National Remembrance said that Nachtigall soldiers took part in the arrests, but not in the murders, and that their role in this event needs further investigation.[20] Sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski noted that while the Nachtigall role is disputed, they were present in the town during the events, their activities are not properly documented, and that at the very least they are guilty of the passive collaboration in this event, for not opposing the atrocities.[16] According to a Lviv historian, Vasyl Rasevych, the claims that Ukrainians participated in the July 1941 massacre are untrue and that no archival evidence exists to support this contention.[21]

After World War II the leadership of the Soviet Union made attempts to diminish the Polish cultural and historic legacy of Lviv. Crimes committed east of the Curzon line could not be prosecuted by Polish courts. Information on the atrocities that took place in Lviv was restricted. In 1960, Dr Helena Krukowska, the widow of Professor Włodzimierz Krukowski, launched an appeal to the court in Hamburg. After five years the German court closed the judicial proceedings. A German public prosecutor claimed the people responsible for the crime were already dead, however SS-HauptsturmführerHans Krueger (also spelled Krüger), commander of the Gestapo unit supervising the massacres in Lviv in 1941, was being held in Hamburg prison (having been sentenced to life imprisonment for the mass murder of Jews and Poles in Stanisławów, committed several weeks after his unit was transferred from Lviv). As a result no person has ever been held responsible for this atrocity.[14]

In the 1970s, Abrahamowicz Street in Lviv was renamed Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Street. Various Polish organisations have made deputations to remember the victims of the atrocity with a monument or a symbolic grave in Lviv. The case of the murder of the professors is currently under investigation by the Institute of National Remembrance. In May 2009, the monument to the victims in Lviv was defaced with red paint bearing the words "Death to the Lachs [Poles]".[22] On 3 July 2011, a memorial dedicated to the 39 Polish professors murdered by the Gestapo on 4 July 1941 opened in Lviv.[21]

^When the front was approaching Lwów, the Russians shot some of the prisoners. Rencki managed to hide in the cell, and during the German bombing escaped from the prison. [in:] Wanda Wojtkiewicz-Rok, W 65. rocznicę kaźni profesorów lwowskich, Gazeta Akademii Medycznej we Wrocławiu; accessed 4 December 2014.